Black wires hum beneath the skin of morning,
and we, bright amputees of feeling,
polish our mirrors to a sterile shine—
no fingerprints, no ghosts allowed.
The heart, once a red cathedral,
now flickers like a faulty bulb,
its saints exiled, its hymns replaced
by the thin arithmetic of survival.
What must we do?
Break the glass we have become.
Let it cut—yes, let it cut—
until the blood remembers
its ancient, furious river.
We must kneel in the ash of our own making,
press our mouths to the scorched earth,
and listen—
not for God, perhaps,
but for the small animal breathing beneath it.
We must gather the fragments:
the child’s unguarded laughter,
the tremor in a stranger’s hand,
the unbearable weight of another’s grief—
and hold them,
hold them as if they were our own bones.
Refuse the anesthesia of indifference.
Refuse the quiet murder of looking away.
Stand in the wound of the world
without stitching it closed too soon.
Love—
not the porcelain king,
but the feral, unslept, breaking kind
that howls in the night
and refuses to die.
This is the work:
to remain.
To burn without becoming ash.
My life's been fine without you -- really has.
A Belgian bar has opened in the square,
and weekends, we do beer and tapas there,
then Malcolm and Elaine's place, for some jazz
and Jamieson's. May in Cortes -- what a blast!
Right now, I'm growing sideburns! Summer hols,
we'll all dress up as bandits and their molls!
I've never laughed so much. Who needs the past?
Yet sometimes, when the lake frowns in the rain,
or April squalls tug blossoms from the trees,
I think of you. This sadness preordained,
like plane trees pollarded, proud amputees
shorn of their plumes, emerges, stark and strange:
and I know then. Some things will never change.
For Palestine
I refuse to read the news.
More dead children in Palestine.
Why did we give people who had suffered
and died in Europe, in a country where
People lived in freedom
To see other people taking their land
and cattle, throwing people of their own
The property is not sensing how wrong
by people who had suffered
Yet, they had no empathy for those they
replaced
I refuse to read the news and listen to
our silence
Nothing we can do, our leaders say
and go on trading with Israel, selling
weapons that kill children without
the slightest hesitation as we wring
our hands and say there is nothing
We can do
How shameful we are, headlines about
The saving of a few amputees learning
to walk with artificial legs
We brag of our kind hearts while
a thousand children are dead under
ruins, dropped by the people who had
Have once been victims themselves.
How insignificant we are, made to look
I will no longer bear witness to our
disgrace,
I will close my mind like everyone else
and talk about the price of tomatoes
The 10th July 2009
7 soldiers died on the front line
Panthers Claw the op was called
Sangin district is where we toured
2nd battalion the rifles had a few bad days
With many a soldier still in that haze
Sangin DC or Fob Rob to others
Left a lot of grieving mothers
The worst fatalities in all the years
Fighting insurgents bringing with it tears
You can't help but to think why
Another of service men and women should die
Others left with life changing injuries
From gunshot wounds to triple amputees
Swift and bold the motto was
But leaving the gates everyone was anxious
Even today 14 years on.
Soldiers struggling feeling they don't belong
Mentally and physically exhausting it is
The mind playing games taking the piss
Rifleman Simpson and Rfn jo Murphy
Cpl Jon horne and Cpl Scot Lee
James backhouse and Sgt Paul mcaleese
William Aldridge lives taken with ease
I know war is war
And casualties happen
But why should this be
Those who survive get PTSD
I'm sat watching the Paralympics
With tears of awe in my eyes,
What an amazing sight,the battle they fight,
Every single day of their lives.
Everyone of them deserve a gold medal,
From the amputees to the ones who can't see.
The cruelty of life can't defeat them
They are all gold winners to me.
So thank you,god bless you, keep winning,
For standing up to the challenges you face.
Filling everyone with hope and inspiration,
For uniting the whole human race..
4/9/2021
We were all trained to push the limits of the human barrier.
physically growing stronger.
Mentally developing professionalism.
Improvise, adapt and overcome.
A war-torn country is the birth of a squaddie.
The remembrance of the vast desert, the lush-us green zone.
etched painful memories to the soldier's daily life.
We stand together, tall and proud.
We cry together.
The heartless actions we carried out were not for revenge, not from anger.
For the greater good of human life.
At the setting of the sun.
The dead lye at rest, the causalities patched up, the amputees are on prosthetics.
But we all remain mentally scared
Floating
on a warm, oceanic wave
Tropical drowsiness drifting,
eyelids falling into corral reef fantasies
Oyster blue dreams,
aquatic Atlantis awaiting
Deep billowy yearning
to reach the lost heart treasure buried
A smile glowing in the undercurrent shadows
has a cerulean luminosity
It draws my fetching mind
to the sea floor core
of your needful symbiotic design
Arising together to the surface
to greet the dawn sunlight
Buoyancy
is a SOS message in a bottle
resiliency
Oyster blue dreams
has opened up my heart
and swallowed all of my empty
This poem was inspired by
the talented poet Jannie Breedt's poem,
"Love Amputees"
Dismiss me so gently like swishing chiffon
To dream like a phoenix, time to drone on
But dead like a doormat,unable to pain
Pillar of salt , summoned by the urgent sea
There to be drowned but for the buoyancy
Pavemented path of ceaseless regret
Appartion goes past I try to forget
Oh that was us, why is this what we do?
We smash our beliefs so deliberately
Hopes doleful travellers, loves amputees
Tore out the page yet swore to be true
Promises made with a foot in the door
Eavesdrop a thought ,oh God I miss you
My life's been fine without you -- really has.
A Belgian bar has opened in the square,
and weekends, we do beer and tapas there,
then Malcolm and Elaine's place, for some jazz
and Jamieson's. May in Cortes -- what a blast!
Right now, I'm growing sideburns! Summer hols,
we'll all dress up as bandits and their molls!
I've never laughed so much. Who needs the past?
Yet sometimes, when the lake frowns in the rain,
or April squalls tug blossoms from the trees,
I think of you. This sadness preordained,
like plane trees pollarded, proud amputees
shorn of their plumes, emerges, stark and strange:
and I know then. Some things will never change.
There is a night
so dark, yet so bright.
Only the blind sees through.
There is a song
so loud yet inaudible.
Only the ear-less discerns.
There is a food
so sweet yet so bitter.
Only the tongueless enjoys.
There is a path
so wide, yet so narrow.
Only the amputees treads
May the truth set you free!
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